Imprisonment
by Toby Black
Summary: Okay, the last of my previously written fics. I believe. Unless I somehow dig up another one. Anyway, written prebook seven.


Drip. Drop. Drip. Drop. These were the sounds that Draco had learned to live with for the past five years. When he had betrayed Voldemort and his father before the final battle, this is what he had condemned himself to. Imprisonment. To be caged like a wild animal and given only enough food to survive.

The worst thing about his endless imprisonment wasn't the hours of torture and weeks of pain he was forced to endure at the hands of his captors. Nor was it the sense of helplessness and inability to fight back. Draco had learned to deal with these long ago. No, the worst part of his half decade imprisonment was the thought that no one would even think about rescuing him. Everyone but his tortures thought he was dead.

Sure, Voldemort had lost. He had been utterly destroyed at the hands of Harry and 'the power that Voldemort knew not'. Others had survived though, including his parents and Aunt Bellatrix. And because of that, Draco paid dearly. Very dearly. It was a stray stunner that did it. That allowed the surviving Death Eaters to capture him. And really, it was only a fluke that had allowed it. A strange twist of fate. Someone who cared slightly for him thinking she was saving him, not condemning him landed him into this mess.

Draco had been involved in the fight in the Great Hall and had seen a flash of red and felt a sharp pain in his side before everything went black. He awoke to find himself in a dungeon cell, most likely one of the many far below Malfoy Manor. Bellatrix has seen him get hit and go down. She hadn't yet heard of his betrayal, so after Voldemort had died and all the surviving Death Eaters were fleeing, she grabbed his unconscious form and apparated out. She shouldn't have been able to do that. To apparate out. None of the Death Eaters should have been able to get out like that. But then, they shouldn't have been able to apparate in either. The wards had been knocked down somehow. Someone had disabled or lowered them. Someone that was close enough to McGonagall to get to the main power source for the wards. That's why the battle was so terrifying for the defenders. The castle, from the time of the school's founding, had been able to defend herself, but couldn't when Voldemort attacked.

Draco looked up at the entrance to his cell through a curtain of long, ragged pale blond hair that was greasy and covered with dirt. Someone was coming. He didn't know if it was one of his parents, come to gloat to or torture him, a servant to bring him food, or maybe a guard to make sure he was still in his cell. Around the corner appeared a tall, man with long pale-blond pair that reached partway down his back. He had on a black robe trimmed in green and silver. On Lucius's arm was a striking woman with clear blue eyes and sleek blond hair that cascaded over her shoulders and down her back. She was just as elegantly dressed as her husband.

Chains snaked out and shackled Draco at his wrists and ankles before pulling him upright and restraining him against the cold, damp stone wall at the back of his cell. Draco didn't even try to fight the chains that bound him, knowing that it would only amuse his parents. He glared at his parents through cold, grey eyes for a moment before asking, "Has Potter and his friends defeated your men again Father?" The word came out as a sneer and held no respect, only hatred and disgust. "Have you come to take out your anger on me because of it?"

A loud smack rang through the cell as Narcissa smacked her son across the face while snarling, "Do no speak to your father that way."

Spitting the blood out of his mouth at his parents' feet, Draco asked, "Mother, just how many mistresses does my father have besides you?"

"Crucio." Lucius hissed, his cold voice hardened with anger as he aimed his wand at his son. "You will pay for your impudence," he continued softly as his only child withered in pain while gritting his teeth to keep from yelling out. The shackles the bound him were cutting into his flesh as he convulsed in anguish. "Yes. You will pay dearly for your impudence and your betrayal." This was the last thing Draco heard before everything went black and he slipped thankfully into unconsciousness.

The first think Draco noticed as he came to was the scratchy, hardened feeling of dried blood that had run down his arms from his wrists to his elbows. The second was the painful throbbing in his head. The third was a silvery light that was coming from his left. Opening his eyes, Draco found himself once again alone in his cell with only the sound of dripping water to break the silence. Except, he wasn't alone. Looking over to his left, he saw a silver stag, a patronus; incline its head before vanishing. Smiling slightly, despite the pain in his head, Draco sat up. A wave of dizziness hit him and he brought his right hand up to rub his head try and stop the room's spinning. As he brought his legs around so he could rest against the cell wall, he realized that at his feet lay a stick ash. Picking it up, Draco instantly recognized it as his wand. The wand that had been left behind at Hogwarts five years ago. Muttering an incantation, Draco smiled much like a predator would when talking their prey. As the pain in his head vanished, hope and determination lit his eyes for the first time in five years. Help was on the way and it was soon going to be time to make Lucius pay for everything that he had done.


End file.
